this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2024
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Next you'll say that you like capitalism, but not the kind that uses slave labor as an integral element.
I don't care for capitalism, but Adam Smith was an abolitionist. He absolutely hated slavery because he believed it to be immoral firstly, and economically inefficient secondly. He couldn't prove the second part, but once someone at either Cambridge or Oxford did manage to prove it, Great Britain and Europe outlawed slavery. Again, I'm not defending capitalism here, and I'm certain, from the tone of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, that, were he alive today, Smith would be railing against Capitalism. I'm just pointing out that it was supposed to be abolished far quicker than The Civil War.
Slave labor didn't stop being integral element after the Civil War. It was scaled back, but it's still both locally an integral element of the economies of many states (via prison labor, to say nothing of how under-the-table migrant dealings go) and via imperialism, etc. used abroad.
I'm not attacking Smith. The "invisible hand" thing is silly and short-sighted, but his work more broadly was the foundation for Marx economically. I'm attacking capitalism as it has existed in history, where it has virtually always used slave labor as an integral element.